As the TPP heads for its next intersessional meeting on IP provisions in April, public concern about the agreement has been growing, often tied to the previous public outcry over SOPA/PIPA and ACTA. The enforcement provisions in the IP section of the TPP have been described as “ACTA-plus,” but to what extent is the TPP an ACTA clone? And how far beyond ACTA does the TPP go? To answer these questions, PIJIP asked me to prepare a comprehensive comparison of the copyright enforcement provisions in the U.S. proposal for an TPP Chapter on IP with those in ACTA.

One important difference is that the TPP proposal contains the DMCA notice and takedown provisions that were stripped from ACTA. When these provisions initially appeared in the leaked ACTA internet section, commenters expressed concern that this would export the DMCA to the rest of the world; though they were eventually stripped from ACTA, the TPP now stands poised to reintroduce these provisions. The TPP is more restrictive than ACTA in many of the other areas where ACTA was controversial, including blocking circumvention of technological protection measures, criminalizing rights infringement, and allowing substantial civil fines for infringement. We hope that these documents will be useful. Please send additions, corrections, or other feedback to pijip@wcl.american.edu.

2 Responses to “TPP vs. ACTA – Line by Line”

What would be really interesting is a comparison of TPP to the drafts of ACTA. This would give us an idea of whether and how the US is using TPP to get what it could not get in ACTA. Could you have that to me by tomorrow, please? Okay, great. Thanks.

A key point to remember is that the text can change in a quicksilver fashion. A decepticon of trade treaties, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 can transform itself through fast-track amendments. The agreement establishes an ACTA Committee, with broad powers to amend and update the treaty. Thus, discretionary clauses could turn into mandatory ones. The scope of the treaty could be enlarged. The obligations could be ratcheted up. Think you need to a rider to this effect that this treaty can be quite dynamic. Similar concerns exist with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

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